


What a Heavenly Way to (Not) Die

by alwayslily22, Des98



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: AND ANYONE WHO THINKS OTHERWISE HAS KLOVES SYNDROME, AND IDK HER, AND SHE LOVES THE HELL OUT OF HER FRIENDS, AND THAT SHIT IS BAD, AND YOU FUCKING KNOW IT, BECAUSE I AM NOT HERE FOR CHARACTER BASHING, BUT CEDRIC WILL STICK AROUND AND STILL BE AWESOME FRIENDS WITH HARRY, BUT SIRIUS IS THE LOVE OF HIS LOVE, BUT THAT WAS CANON, Canon?, Cool, DRACO IS A JEALOUS MOTHERFUCKER, F/F, F/M, Gen, HE'S EMPATHETIC AS FUCK, HERMIONE SHOULD HAVE BEEN A SLYTHERIN PROBABLY, I LOVE MY SMOL SON RON SO MUCH, I WOULD DIE FOR ALL OF THESE CHILDREN, M/M, Multi, REMUS SLEPT WITH TONKS IN CANON BECAUSE HE WAS SAD AND MISSED HIS GAY DOGGY, RON DOES NOT HAVE THE EMOTIONAL RANGE OF A TEASPON, RON IS EVERYTHING HARRY NEEDED OKAY, RON WEASLEY DEFENCE SQUAD, Remember?, SIRIUS BLACK IS ONE DRAMATIC GAY MOTHERFUCKER, So I realised that i've been putting all the fun tags in the relationship section, THAT GIRL IS RUTHLESS AF, THEREWOLF!, THOSE FUCKERS GAY AS SHIT, WELL REMUS IS BI, WHO IS STUPIDLY IN LOVE WITH HARRY AND DOESN'T KNOW HOW TO HANDLE IT, WOLFSTAR IS CANON AND THEY ARE SO IN LOVE, WOULD LOVE TO BASH HIS HEAD IN WITH A ROCK TBH, YELLS IN GAY!, but anyway whatever, except dumbledore, future drarry, idk her, thanks for coming to my tag talk, werewolf?, wolfstar, y'all know by now I'm a stupid hoe
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-01
Updated: 2018-09-17
Packaged: 2019-07-05 05:50:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 16,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15857508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alwayslily22/pseuds/alwayslily22, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Des98/pseuds/Des98
Summary: So Angela_97 had a dream that she told me about which spawned another AU.  But basically, what if the effects of the Priori incantatem were a little bit less temporary?  How would having Cedric and his parents and that one random muggle back change the course of the rest of Harry's Hogwarts career?  Let's find out.  And yes, the title is a play on one of the songs from the Troye Sivan album that came out today because I am gay trash and his music gives me serious Drarry vibes.





	1. Chapter 1

Harry wondered how long he could keep going like this.  His boyfriend was dead; he himself wasn’t too far from it.  His leg was screaming at him, protesting the way he’d been tied up so that nearly the majority of his weight was settled on top of the already-broken bone.  

Then there was a knife being brought to his arm, Wormtail catching the blood in a phial, his very face a reminder of everything that he’d cost Harry- his family, his happiness, the long periods of starvation in his cupboard and the skin that Vernon had stripped out of his back with his belt buckle.  He glared at the rat-faced man, determined that if he _was_ going to die like this, it wouldn’t be without a fight.  As the knife was withdrawn, he spat in the man’s face. Wormtail wiped it away angrily, but there was no other response as he took the phial to the bubbling cauldron.  He didn’t even have the courage to react of his own accord, the entirety of his cowardly, sniveling soul tied into Voldemort’s whims. It had been a long time since he’d had a will of his own, since he’d even _tried._ Harry didn’t know; maybe he never did- _he_ himself couldn’t imagine that anyone with even a spark of fight in them would _ever_ break a family apart like the rat had broken his.

His attention was drawn back to the bubbling potion as, despite his desperate wishes, the body of Voldemort emerged, fully formed, blue like a corpse with eyes like the glowing coals of a dying fire.  He was naked, calling for his cowardly servant to robe him as he held his arms out like a profligate monarch as he waited for his vestments. Harry remembered a time when he hadn’t known hatred, even as Dudley and his father beat the shit out of him by turns at the house and at school, leaving him no respite as Petunia slammed the cupboard door screaming invectives as he lie there in pain.  Even then, he hadn’t understood what it meant to oppose so vehemently someone’s entire existence. He knew it now. The Dursleys were ignorant and hateful and _cruel,_ but Harry’s heart had a boundless capacity to forgive and forget as he thought that maybe they just couldn’t help it, couldn’t help the way they treated him.  But Pettigrew had known happiness and love and acceptance and he’d thrown it all away, all for this… this _thing._ He hated both of them with a furor he didn’t even know he was capable of.  

“Still no nose?” He snarled, looking into Tom Riddle’s face as the man came to loosen the ropes binding him, wanting to take him on personally in a duel.  He stumbled, his broken leg unable to support his weight, but he pushed himself back up from his hands and knees, still glaring.

“Enough talk, boy, now we _duel,”_ Riddle declared, and Harry’s eyes hardened further- he _hated_ being called ‘boy.’  Death Eaters popped one by one into the clearing, but his eyes, a luminous Avada Kedavra green in the darkness of the graveyard, were focused only on his opponent.

“Now bow,” Voldemort ordered.  Harry just spat at his feet, the liquid carrying a bitter tang of blood as it left his mouth.

“Never,” he swore, not caring how cliche it sounded.   There was a wand being pointed at him now, the cruciatus lighting his every nerve ending not with a fire but with deadly, uncontrolled electricity.  He imagined that this was what it was like to touch a live wire, if one could _feel_ every second of the shock, and if it lasted long enough for one to be aware of their own slippery descent towards the veil, down and down and down.  He couldn’t help it; he screamed. It was pain and anger all at once, but it was _not_ weakness.  He wasn’t begging like Riddle wanted; he would _never_ beg.  Even if he was left as just a corpse on the ground, bloodied and dirtied, there would be no plea for mercy from his lips.  That would be his final victory even if he was left with nothing else, left to die in this graveyard surrounded only by enemies.

Then the curse had stopped, and he somehow managed to struggle to his feet again, one dragging behind him limply.  He held his wand out, refusing to go down easily.

Say what you would about Riddle, he certainly wasn’t a dueller.  His movements were predictable, blast after blast of cruciatus and killing curses, and Harry would find it amusing if he was in a state where he could fight properly.  As it was, he narrowly missed another bolt of green light, gathering his strength for his own spell.

 _“EXPELLIARMUS!”_  He bellowed from his parched throat, and his own bolt of light, brilliant and golden and glowing faintly in the night, sped forward to meet another stream of sickly green from his opponent’s wand.  Harry felt every bone in his battered body rattle agonizingly as they connected, his own wand growing hot in his hand as it met the resistence of the other spell. He didn’t know what was happening, exactly, but he knew what it would mean if Riddle were allowed to continue pushing the green further past the middle- that would be it for him.  So he pushed back, little beads of gold like dripping syrup pushing further up as the holly in his hand began to vibrate like a pager in his hand; he couldn’t have let go even if he wanted to.

He didn’t want to.  He pushed harder as steam began to hiss from the wire of spellpower.  In fact, he was so focused that he barely felt it as his forehead split open, and didn’t even _notice_ the oily black cloud that went screaming out of his scar, disappearing as it was pushed further and further away from the light fog of magic that was coming from Harry’s wand.  It took him a moment, in his haze of concentration, to realise that they were solidifying into vague shapes. And then the shapes were forming people; the first form he knew quite well.  He’d studied it in detail, through stolen kisses in the bath and late night study sessions in the kitchen, trying to do everything they could to survive this tournament. The moment where Harry had realised that they would not only survive but _win, win together_ had been the first true joy he’d felt in a long, long time.  And then Cedric had been taken from him… he was being given a chance to say goodbye…

Except it wasn’t goodbye… suddenly there was the soft brush of very _real_ hands against his own skin as Cedric, newly resurrected against every law Harry thought he knew, was supporting his weight with one arm while intertwining their fingers with the other, helping him push back against Riddle’s spell.  

“Shhh, I’m here,” he whispered to Harry, who was biting back a sob.  “I don’t know how, but I am; let me help you.” Then Harry collapsed back against him in relief as the warmth of Cedric’ magic shot through his fingers and down his wand.  

“I’m so tired, Ced… _so tired,”_ he muttered, teetering on the edge of consciousness.

“I know, Har, but we _have_ to keep going; we can get back- _together.”_

And _together_ was such a sweet, sweet word, one that Harry hadn’t _truly_ understood the meaning of before Hogwarts.  So he grit his teeth and kept going. And then an old man was emerging from the mist as well, the one from his dream earlier in the year…

“Oh, here we go again,” he grumbled, rolling his eyes.  “Right, well I’m not grabbing that magic stick- couldn’t use it even if I understood how.  Oh dammit, these fuckers are about to kill me again, aren’t they?” He dodged a death eater coming at him far too nimbly for a man of his age, and the walking stick he’d died with made an audible _thunk_ as it collided with the skull of one Lucius Malfoy.

“Alright kid, heaven or wherever wasn’t too bad, so you better have a good reason for bringing me back into this bloody madness,” he swore at Harry, taking a protective position behind the two wizards.

“Don’t quite know what’s going on, thanks,” Harry muttered through gritted teeth, but he kept pushing.  If Cedric and the old had come back, maybe…

And then there was red hair, dark and vivid and _real,_ flapping in the wind from the spell as his mother touched his face for the first time in thirteen years, a tender look in her eyes as she came around to support him on Cedric’s other side.  “Your father’s coming, if you can just hold on a _little longer,_ baby…”

Harry held on with all his might, until a taller, healthier, slightly darker version of him with hazel eyes emerged and solidified, looking just like he had in the moments before his death.

“Come on, Prongslet- one more push…” he encouraged, as three wizards linked hands over the wand of a person they all cared about very much, helping him to keep going, and there was a pulse of pure light magic as Tom Riddle Jr. and all his death eaters were thrown back, unconscious against the ground.

“We have to leave,” Lily told them.  “We don’t know how much time we have before they wake up.”  She helped hand Harry off to James, who picked his injured son up in his arms and carried him towards the cup, and Harry allowed himself to relax into the embrace.

“Merlin, Prongslet… we’re so glad to be back.  Now you’ll never have to hurt again… never have to go back _there…_ ” his mouth was a tight line of anger as he held Harry even closer, and the teen’s own eyes shot back open in surprise.

“You… you _know?”_  He whispered, voice hoarse and heart pounding wildly.  All the secrets he’d kept, for thirteen years, all laid bare…

“We could see everything, Bambi,” Lily whispered, tears shining in her eyes.  “It was like dying again, watching that happen to you, except so much longer and _so_ much worse… as soon as we get back, we’re going to Poppy, and you’re taking the glamours down.”

“Mum, I… I _can’t…”_ he rasped, the idea terrifying.  “Nobody can know; it can’t be…”

“Shhh, they have to,” James whispered.  “You need to be taken care of. We’re sorry, Prongslet.”  Luckily, Harry’s boyfriend hadn’t heard anything, too busy looking in befuddlement at his own dead body, feeling himself dissociate.

“What… what do I _do_ with this?” He asked.  “I mean, I can’t just leave it for the muggles to find… I can’t be reported murdered when they’ll just find me alive halfway across the country…”

“Pick it up and let’s go, boy,” Frank ordered gruffly, and Harry and both of his parents tensed at the term.   “I’m not staying here any longer than I have to.”

“Just hold on, Prongslet,” Harry’s father whispered into his ear, tenderly brushing his hair aside.  “It’s all gonna be okay.” Then they each put a finger on the cup as the world disappeared in a swirl of color once again.


	2. Chapter 2

The first few moments after their return were the most chaotic in the tournament thus far, with two people who had been dead for thirteen years returning very much alive but not looking a day older, the man holding his injured son, who was hanging onto consciousness and looking so, _so_ much younger than he was, the glamors hiding his gaunt form and the scars under his robes having finally fallen in his exhaustion.  Harry could only be grateful that nobody except his parents seemed to notice that his cheeks were so hollow, far more than they had been when he’d entered the maze, and that he looked like he might break at the slightest touch.  Those that _did_ notice how bad he looked attributed it to the stress of whatever happened in the maze.

But not many people were looking at Harry at all, for once.  The eyes that weren’t on James and Lily were focused on Cedric, who was very much alive but was carrying an exact replica of his body that was very much _not._ Ron and Hermione were doing their best to fight their way through the crowd, but the entirety of the space in front of the odd little group was occupied by Professor Dumbledore and the Ministry of Magic.

 _“James and Lily Potter?!”_ Fudge gasped.   _“How are you alive?!”_

“Priori incantatem,” Lily stated simply, her voice neutral.  She just wanted to warn them of the threat of Not-Moody, make it clear that Sirius was innocent and Voldemort was back, and get her baby to the hospital wing so he could begin to recover.

“You know as well as I do that that spell shouldn’t be able to bring back the dead,” Dumbledore responded, his expression grave as he realised just _whose_ wand Harry’s would have had to connect with for the spell to enact.

“Well it did this time,” James huffed shortly.  “But we have bigger concerns.”

And then Moody was being caught, restrained by Hagrid and McGonagall as he was dragged kicking and screaming in front of the crowd before being force-fed veritaserum, and the truth was coming out and Fudge was standing there in the middle of the Hogwarts Quidditch Pitch with people panicking around him wondering _how_ he was ever going to handle the situation, signing a full pardon for Sirius Black with a distracted hand as Bartemius Crouch Jr. was dragged off to Azkaban.  Ron and Hermione finally made their way through, gasping as _they_ most definitely noticed that Harry looked far worse than he should.

“Come,” Lily told them, her viridian eyes softening just a fraction as they landed on Harry’s friends.  “We need to get him to the hospital wing.”

No arguments could be made in response to _that_ statement, so it was that they headed into school.  Cedric was standing near his parents, still awkwardly holding his own corpse as he looked at Dumbledore.

“What should I do with this?” living-Cedric asked the headmaster, motioning to dead-Cedric.  “It’s distressing my parents.” Indeed, Mr. and Mrs. Diggory were looking from their living, _breathing_ son to the figure in his arms that looked like it could be his dead twin brother, should he have had one.

“I don’t know, dear boy, as you are the first person who has ever come to Hogwarts carrying their own body,” the man said, not-at-all helpfully.

Cedric sighed.  “Well, I can’t cremate it,” he mumbled.  “That would just be _wrong…”_  He wasn’t at all keen about leaving it in the forest for some monster to munch on, either, but it’s not like he could carry it to a graveyard and put it under a headstone, either.  He could bury it by Hagrid’s hut, but then what if a ghostly version of him came back to haunt the poor half-giant? This was rather unprecedented territory.

In the end he decided to handle it later and tried to follow his boyfriend into the hospital wing so he could be there for him, but Madame Pomfrey would absolutely _not_ allow dead bodies of any kind in her domain.

“Take it outside, Mr. Diggory,” she ordered him sternly.  Honey-brown eyes looked at Harry helplessly.

“I don’t want to leave you,” he muttered softly, and Harry mustered up the effort it took to speak.

“It’s okay,” he croaked.  “I’ve got my parents and Ron and Hermione- you go figure out what to do with your body.”  There was a sort of dark humour in the statement as they both shared a morbid little smile before the Hufflepuff leaned down carefully to peck Harry on the lips.

“Cruciatus curse and a _nasty_ fracture in the left leg,” Madame Pomfrey muttered, pursing her lips.  “Treatment will have to be handled carefully.”

“Hold on a second, Poppy,” Lily murmured quietly to the nurse.  “There are some… _extenuating_ circumstances.”  She shot a glance towards Ron and Hermione out of the corner of her eye, and Harry caught it.

“They can stay,” he sighed wearily, the sound full of resignation.  “They’d find out eventually, anyway…” He never wanted people to know what had happened at the Dursleys, but now that his parents did and Madame Pomfrey was about to learn and he’d have to leave the glamors down… well, there was no point in hiding it from the people closest to him any longer.

“Alright Bambi,” Lily agreed, running a hand gently through his hair.  “Whatever you want.” She turned back to Pomfrey.

“Call Severus,” she ordered, spitting the name out as if it was poisonous.  “We’ll need his aid.”

“Very well,” Poppy agreed, knowing that Lily had been going through healer’s training before she’d joined the aurors out of a sense of obligation.

“Now,” she began.  “What are these extenuating circumstances?”

“Long-term maltreatment and abuse,” James hissed through a clenched jaw, and Ron and Hermione both gasped.  “He’s been using glamors up until now.”

“Oh…” Poppy said faintly, as she removed Harry’s robes.  A rib on his chest was bent out of place, and there were some various scars (mainly from Dudley and his gang; Vernon tended to focus mostly on his back except for a kick or fist to the ribs now and then).  She sat him up gently to look at his back, and she had to physically hold herself back from retching into the corner. How anyone could do this to a child…

“They beat him basically weekly, sometimes twice,” Lily thundered, as Harry looked down at his hands in embarrassment.

“Please mum…” he whispered raspily, and she put a hand on his shoulder softly.

“I’m sorry darling, but she needs to know,” Lily reminded her son.  “Extended periods of starvation as punishment for whatever they thought he did ‘wrong,’” she spat, and if Petunia had been there she would not have hesitated to kill her own sister.  “Which was basically existing… he’s going to need a long-term treatment program.”

Poppy nodded briskly, back into professional mode (just barely).  “And you…” her normally stern voice was hesitant. “You… saw everything?”

“Yes,” James nodded jerkily, tears in his eyes.  “Eternal paradise, but we had to watch…” his voice broke.  “We had to watch him going through hell, unable to do anything about it.”  He was trying to hold it together for his son, he really was, but a sob of raw anguish managed to escape anyway.

“I’m so sorry,” the nurse sighed, eyes on each of them in turn.  “I really… I should have seen something.”

“S’not your fault, Madame Pomfrey,” Harry mumbled.  “I was good at hiding it.”

“Unfortunately, you were,” the nurse agreed, handing him a potion.  “For the aftereffects of the cruciatus,” she informed him, when he looked at it quizzically.  “You wouldn’t have learned about it yet.”

Harry gulped down the potion with a grimace as the nurse examined his leg and cast a few diagnostic charms.  “Accounting for the effects of the malnutrition on your bones and the severity of the break, it would be too risky to fix it with magic,” she informed him.  “It’ll have to be the muggle way. And with everything else… well,” she exhaled. “It’s a good thing you’re excused from exams, Mr. Potter, because you will be here quite a while.  I want to start you on a comprehensive regime of corrective potions, and with any luck we’ll have fixed as much as we can within the next year or two. Now, where is Severus…”

The potions master came in, his normal brooding stalk reduced to tentative footsteps.  He’d been witness to the events on the quidditch pitch just like everybody else, and he was full of anxiety to see his old best friend again.  

He was right to be.  Only up to his chest, Lily nevertheless seemed to take up half the room as she stormed up to him and slapped him across the face- _hard._

“How _dare_ you treat my son that way?!” she shrieked, pulling the collar of his robes down so that he was forced to look into her eyes.  “I saw _everything,_ Severus Tobias Snape, and you can be _damn sure_ I’ll never forgive you for this! And how could you not have seen the signs?!  For a man who went on and on about his horrible childhood, you sure were too wrapped up in your own selfishness to notice that my baby was having a far worse one by the time he came to your class!  But was _he_ bitter about it- _no!_ And yet you treated him like some sort of degenerate just because of who his father was!  It’s a miracle he’s as good-hearted and kind as he is today, what with the way my sister and her _troll_ of a husband treated him before he came to you for four more years of verbal and emotional torment!  And another thing, _Snivellus,”_ the man visibly flinched at his old epithet, “I’ve _seen_ you letting other children sabotage his potions and not doing a damn thing about it, and I _know_ that you marked his perfectly stellar essays with rubbish grades just because you couldn’t let go of your hatred for James!  He’s just as good at potions as I was, but he doesn’t even know it because of the way _you’ve_ treated him!  I swear on Circe’s blackest arts, if I didn’t need you to make potions to help him…” Her knee was itching to  give him a good kick in the crotch, but she restrained herself. Ron and Hermione watched in open-mouthed awe as their least-favorite professor finally got the verbal beat-down he’d been deserving of for so long, and if Ron wasn’t so depressed about his brother’s condition, a smile would have surely been making its way onto his face at that very moment.

Harry himself was incredibly embarrassed.  He was over the moon to have his parents back, of course, but his shame that the man now knew about the Dursleys and was going to learn by medical necessity of every embarrassing detail was overriding every other thought.  Lily noticed this with a pang in her chest.

“You know,” she told him conversationally, ready to do everything she could to cheer her baby up.  “Snivellus wet the bed until he was nine.” Even up until her death, she wouldn’t have _dreamed_ of telling a soul about some of the mortifying things he’d confided to her when they were children, but now there were no holds barred, not after what he’d done to Harry.  If her poor son had to suffer through the humiliation of having everyone learn of the things he’d held to his chest for so long when he hadn’t even done a single thing wrong, then she could be damn sure that Snape was going to be a thousand times more uncomfortable.

“He _did?!”_ Ron’s mouth fell open at this, and Harry couldn’t bite back a tiny smile.  Snape glared in their direction but couldn’t do anything, especially when Lily caught the look and stomped down- _hard-_ upon his foot.

“Yep,” she continued, popping the _p_ and going over to join her husband in holding their son’s hand as Madame Pomfrey prepared for the painful task of resetting the bone in his leg so she could wrap it in a cast.  “Couldn’t tie his shoes until he was ten, either. And he _still_ sleeps with a nightlight.”

“Oh, that’s just _too_ good,” Ron declared, before wincing far more than Harry (who flinched just a bit) as Madame Pomfrey reset the bone with an audible _snap!_

“I can personally guarantee it,” Lily snickered.  “I was watching just last night while I cursed him from beyond the veil to try to make myself feel better.”

“His animagus is a fruit bat and he’s afraid of dogs!” James couldn’t resist butting in as his wife chuckled.

“It’s true,” she added.  “When I was younger, we had a little teacup pug that we had to put in her carrier every time Snivvy came over, because if it so much as went _near_ him, his knees would start knocking together.”

“Nuh-uh!” Harry was gradually perking up, trying but failing to hold in his laughter as Poppy carefully wrapped his left leg in a cast from thigh to toes.

“I swear it’s true, Prongslet,” his mother swore.  “He doesn’t much like rabbits, either.”  
“Maybe that’s why he became a potions master,” Hermione couldn’t resist adding.  “So he could get his revenge.”

“Alright, you can continue laughing at him later,” Madame Pomfrey broke in.  “But for now, I need to give him a list of things I need him to make and send him back to his lab.”

“Don’t you mean his ‘bat-cave?’” Ron snorted, incredibly glad that Harry and Hermione had taught him enough about muggle stuff that he could make that joke.  His two best friends laughed along with him as the black girl high-fived the redhead.

Severus Snape had never looked more pathetic than he did as he scrambled away, not even the night he’d come begging to Dumbledore to protect Lily.  James watched him with a vindictive sense of satisfaction. He was man enough to admit that he’d been a bit of an arse to the man when they were back in school, but Snape had given it back just as well, and even if he _hadn’t,_ that was no reason to take it out on defenceless children.

“Alright, calm your giggles,” the healer ordered.  “The patient needs to rest.” Harry was indeed very tired, but he wasn’t quite ready to close his eyes just yet, afraid that he would wake up and find that having his parents back would be just a dream.

“We’re not going anywhere Prongslet,” his father promised, picking up on his anxieties as he gently stroked his head to help him sleep, the way he’d done when Harry was a baby.  The teen felt himself just starting to drift off when they were interrupted by Sirius parading into the hospital wing, twirling his wand between his fingers.

“Sorry it took so long to get here, pup,” he huffed, out of breath and dragging Moony by the hand.  “But everyone and their damn minister was trying to work their way back into my good graces now that I’m ‘Lord Black’ (he made a face as he said this) again.  And I _may_ have snogged Remus in front of all of them, just to see their faces as they tried to pretend they weren’t bigoted arsefaces and weren’t bothered by it.”

“It was quite a sight,” Remus agreed, munching on a chocolate bar from Honeydukes.  “How’s Harry?”

“Could be better,” Lily sighed, as James sang him an old Beatles song as his eyes fluttered.  “We’ll talk about it once he’s asleep.”

The many potions he’d had to take before Poppy had left to go update his medical records (an unpleasant job with all that she’d learned tonight) ensured that Harry was quick to pass out under the pile of quilts and with his parents both right there with him holding his hand.  Sirius and Remus did not take the news well, understandably, although they managed to keep their all-encompassing rage to a fairly low volume so they wouldn’t wake their godson.

“Oh Merlin…” Sirius realised suddenly, his face taking on an expression of self-loathing.  “The night that we met, he agreed to come stay with me, an ex-convict he’d known for all of half an hour… I should have realised something was wrong…”

“I should have as well,” Remus sighed sadly.  “I was his teacher for _a year,_ and I saw the way he reacted to the dementors… no thirteen-year-old should have enough unhappy memories to cause something like that…”

“You can’t blame yourselves,” James told his best friends sternly.  “The only ones at fault for this are the Dursleys and Dumbledore… that old bastard _knew_ he wasn’t happy there, knew that that was the _last_ place we would have sent Harry.  I don’t care if he didn’t realise how bad it was; he should have _never_ tried to meddle in Harry’s life that way.”

 _“And_ he left you to rot in Azkaban,” Lily snarled, her face alight with righteous anger.  “You can’t tell me he didn’t at least have a _suspicion_ that something was off with that situation, and either way he should have pushed for a trial.”

“It’s because he knew that Sirius would throw a wrench in his plans,” Remus growled, the anger making his amber eyes glow with a nearly feral intensity.  “Severus was useful because of his position with Voldemort, but Padfoot would have made _sure_ that Harry wouldn’t have been left with Petunia.  So he _left him there.”_ Sirius put a comforting arm around his boyfriend, but his own silver eyes were angry too.

“At least he didn’t _know for certain_ I was innocent, but he let _you_ struggle in poverty for twelve years even though you deserved to be safe and comfortable,” he intoned darkly.  “Remus John Lupin did _not_ deserve to suffer.”  He was glad that he had full access to the ludicrously exorbitant Black fortune now, so that the love of his life could be a kept man and he could buy him all the books he could possibly want and more chocolate than he could ever eat.  He placed a soft kiss on Moony’s ear, and Ron and Hermione wore matching soft expressions as they watched the couple.

“I _told_ you they were dating,” Ron whispered to his her.

“I didn’t argue with you,” Hermione reminded him.  

“I know,” he replied back.  “I just wanted you to remember that _I_ noticed it first!”  Hermione rolled her eyes at his smug expression.

 _“I_ noticed your crush on Krum first; you spent the entire time at the ball looking at him and ignoring poor Padma.”

“We just went as friends anyway,” Ron deflected, hoping his vivid blush wasn’t quite as visible in the dim light.  Krum hadn’t been the _only_ one he was looking at that night… sometimes he cursed the fact that out of all the Weasley children, he had been the one who’d gotten the most of their mother’s emotional intelligence.  He would have been quite happy _not_ to be aware of the fact that two people he was so attracted to had gone to the ball together.  At least _Harry_ had a good time, having gone with Cedric while Cho tagged along as he spent the night being passed back and forth from crush to crush, his small brown face blushing adorably as they tried to teach him how to dance (Cho had been casually dating the couple for a few weeks after the ball before she started going steady with Marietta Edgecombe.  Luckily, with three such mild-mannered people, they still got along famously).

“Ron,” Hermione nudged him.  “You kind of zoned out there for a minute.”

“Oh,” Ron blushed, but as his eyes landed on Harry’s sleeping form again, he immediately kicked himself for allowing even a minute to get caught up in his own problems when his best friend was suffering so.  He should have noticed; Harry talked about the Dursleys all the time…

“We couldn’t have known,” Hermione said, nudging him, although her face was full of guilt as well.  “I mean, let’s look at it rationally… he’d been hiding it for years; he almost passed it off as a joke, how bad they were.  He was an abused child; they’re _experts_ at keeping people from noticing these things…” She was trying to reassure both Ron and herself, but unlike usual, all of the cold hard facts weren’t enough for her, her guilt carving a hole in her chest.

“You can’t blame yourselves,” Lily whispered, catching on to their quiet conversation.  “The people who should have noticed didn’t; there’s nobody to blame but the Dursleys and Dumbledore and Severus…” The man had been abused; he was the head of Slytherin house (with the highest portion of troubled or mistreated students), and he _should have realised!_

“What are we _ever_ going to do to help him?” Ron hated that his voice broke, coming out as a whimper.  Harry was suffering; he needed to be _strong_ for him.

“Treat him normally,” James instructed.  “Just be there for him as his friend, like you always have.  You can’t pity him, or he’ll shut down on you.”

“How are we going to keep Cedric from going over there and killing them?” Hermione suddenly asked.  “He’s a grown wizard.” She and Ron were both well aware that the only thing keeping _them_ there was the fact that they couldn’t yet apparate.  She knew that Sirius and Lupin and Harry’s parents were holding themselves back so they could focus on Harry, but eventually… well, Harry’s loved ones were _very_ protective of him, and the only thing _she_ wanted to make sure is that they would never get caught.

As if summoned by his name, Harry’s protective boyfriend suddenly entered the hospital wing.  “Frank and I buried my body,” he announced. “Said a few words and everything, and no ghost has appeared yet, so that’s good… speaking of which, I’m not quite sure where that old muggle went off to. Oh well, he seems like he can take care of himself.  Say, is anyone hungry? Should I go get treacle tarts so Harry has them there when he wakes up?” His nervous rambling was suddenly cut off when he noticed the state his boyfriend was in, and he stopped in the middle of the hospital wing, confused and afraid.

“Come sit down, dear,” Lily sighed, patting the empty chair beside her.  “We have to talk…”


	3. Chapter 3

Six months ago, Percy Weasley never would have even _dreamed_ of finding himself on the wrong side of the ministry of magic.  But then the second task came along and he’d found out they were planning on kidnapping innocent children without their consent, among them his little brother.  He’d sort of lost it and (in a move that vastly endeared him to Fred and George) quit his job in the middle of the night in an empty hallway of Hogwarts after calling his boss a “rotten troll wanker” and trying to free the hostages.  It had taken the combined efforts of Crouch, Bagman, and Karkaroff to stun him, after which they’d hidden him in a broom closet and polyjuiced an intern to look like him for the day.

He’d been found by a house elf six hours later and run out to try to find Ron when he was unfortunately told by one of the aurors securing the premises that he’d been henceforth banned from attending the rest of the tournament or any related activity.  This was why, on the night of the third task, he found himself pacing inside the living room of The Burrow and nervously flipping through a book, trying to build his case against the ministry for child endangerment and waiting for news on the conclusion of the tournament.  The basket of muffins his mother had made earlier was already half-finished; the stress eating he was doing right now was worse than it had been during his OWLS and NEWTS, and that was saying something. He used to get after Ron for the sheer amount of food he’d inhaled, but now that he thought about it, the poor boy had been dragged into something dangerous _every damn year_ ; no wonder he was always so hungry.  The Weasley men’s fast metabolism could be quite a curse, he mused as he stomach rumbled again, even though he’d eaten a pasty not half an hour before.

“Stop that,” he ordered it crossly, but it only continued its cries to be fed.  “Merlin, it’s no wonder we’re poor,” he muttered as he went to the kitchen again.  “The amount of food we eat...” But whatever else the Weasley family lacked, it could never be said that there wasn’t always an abundance of good things to fill hungry bellies, so Percy found a leftover ham in the icebox quite quickly.  He was making himself a sandwich when the floo flared to life and his mother’s face came through.

“Mum!” he cried, mouth full (yes, he was finding it harder and harder to justify the way he used to scold Ronnie).  “Oh, thank Merlin and Morgana- is the tournament over? Can I come through now?!”

“Yes dear, but hang on a moment,” she told him.  “There have been a few developments…”

Percy was concerned when his mother told him that he might want to pour himself a firewhisky- she was not overly approving of drinking except on special occasions, and she knew he really wasn’t the type of person to do it even then.  “Mum, you’re scaring me…” he told her. “Please, just tell me what’s wrong.”

“He’s back,” Molly sighed, her expression grave and her posture more defeated than he’d ever seen it.

“Harry, you mean?  Well, I would hope _so,”_ he declared.  “Even the ministry couldn’t just let him die in that maze!”

“Not Harry, sweetheart- although yes, Harry too,” she was quick to rectify when Percy’s face clenched in panic.  “But there was a problem…”

Ten minutes later, Molly was rubbing his back softly as he wretched violently into the bin where they kept the potato peels that they saved to feed the chickens.  He-who-must-not-be-named was… but he couldn’t be… this was _bad._ Unlike the twins and Ron, Percy was old enough to remember what it had been like when You-Know-Who was in power: mothers afraid to let their children play outside, listening at the radio for the names of the dead, wondering if their relatives would be announced, or worse, wondering if they were missing but would never be found, if they would never even have that much closure...  the horrible way his mother had wailed when she’d heard about Uncle Fabian and Uncle Gideon… and now it was all starting anew, and he felt like he was five years old again.

“Mummy,” he whimpered, his voice small as he used the term for the first time since he was seven or eight.  “This can’t be happening… it just _can’t…”_

“I’m sorry darling,” Molly whispered, holding him.  “But there’s good news too… here, come on through with me and we’ll all sit down and talk.”

The location of their impromptu little meeting was the Hogwarts Hospital Wing, in soft voices, and Percy’s eyes widened as he took in the sight of James and Lily Potter, looking as if they’d merely been frozen in time and not dead for the last thirteen years.

“Well, if it isn’t the Ministry menace,” Fred (or maybe it was George; they traded names like most people changed clothes, and only Harry seemed to have the knack for telling them apart 100% of the time) chuckled, but it was a weak rendition of their new favourite joke, the twins’ faces for once as serious as everyone else’s in the room.  Percy’s eyes took in Harry’s injured form lying on the bed and Ron and Hermione and Cedric’s long faces as they cast worried looks at him, and Percy’s instincts told them that those three knew more than the rest of his family.

“What happened?” he ventured to ask, and the answer he was given was perhaps stranger than anything he could have dreamt up even using all the limited disposal of creativity he’d been given (Fred and George had gotten the creativity, Ron the empathy, Bill the spirit of adventure, Charlie the awkward lack of social graces, he himself the logic and rationality, and, ironically, Ginny got the sheer _balls)._

“Oh,” was all he could think to say as he sat, hands folded in his lap.  His cheeks lit up as his stomach had the nerve to growl again.

“Stress does weird things to my metabolism,” he explained in a low voice as Cedric looked at him curiously and his mother handed him a piece of fudge from her purse.

“Huh- I always thought it was just Ron,” Hermione remarked.  Harry muttered something unintelligible in his sleep and tried to turn over but was hindered by his cast.  His breathing began to quicken anxiously until Lily grabbed his hand, humming softly until he relaxed again.

“So what do we do now?”  Percy asked eventually, licking chocolate off his fingers.  “I mean, we can’t trust the ministry to handle this; they can’t even manage their filing system efficiently.”

“Percy,” George (or was it Fred) began,

“We love you,” the other picked up.

“But it really lowers your newfound coolness factor when you won’t shut up about the filing system,” George finished.  Percy didn’t particularly _care_ about his newfound coolness factor or whatever it was, so he rolled his eyes and groaned.

“Not the point,” he reminded them through his teeth.

“Can we even trust the Order?” Remus interjected, sparing them from an oncoming argument between the siblings.  “I mean, we have to admit that Dumbledore has rather disappointed us in the recent past.”

“What’s the Order?” Ron asked curiously, his fingers still linked with Harry’s (as they had been for the past twenty minutes) as he gently squeezed his best friend’s hand.

“An organization that you are too young to join,” his mother declared with finality.

“I don’t _care_ if I’m too young,” Ron challenged, his tone rebellious.  “That motherfucker is trying to kill my best friend, and I want to fight him!”

“Me too!” Ginny declared.  Her mother gave her a stern look- she hadn’t even wanted her involved in this, but somehow she’d talked her way into being allowed to join the conversation (sometimes she thought that at least half of her children ought to have been sorted into Slytherin).

 _“Language,_ Ronald, and neither one of you will be fighting in this war- you’re just children!”

“We’ve been dragged _into it_ whether we like it or not,” Ginny protested stubbornly.  “I was possessed by Voldemort-” the rest of her family flinched at the name, but she wasn’t afraid to say it after she’d _seen_ so much worse when he was controlling her mind, “and Ron, Harry and Hermione have been caught up against him year after year!”

“Ginevra Molly Weasley, you are _thirteen_ and you will stay _out of it,”_ her father declared, and he so rarely raised his voice that his input was enough to stun her into silence for a few moments.

“We’ll do our best to keep them separate from this, of course, but I’m not sure we have a choice,” Remus sighed.  “Voldemort-” another round of flinching from just over half the group- “obviously sees your family as a threat. He’s seen what Ron is capable of first hand, and Lucius Malfoy was so afraid of your powerful magic that he tried to weaponize your daughter.  And now Percy had openly defied the Ministry of Magic and it took _three grown men_ to stun him.  Fred and George create products that are quite frankly wonders of magical engineering.  Of your eldest, one works with Gringotts and the other is capable of handling a fully-grown dragon.  If there’s anyone he’s going to prioritize as just under Harry, it will be you all.”

“Hey!” Sirius yelped.  “I’d like to think _I_ make the high-priority list.”

His boyfriend rolled his eyes.  “Shut up, Padfoot; it’s not a competition.”

“If it was, though…” Fred began,

“We’d win,” George finished, smiling cheekily.

Just then, there was a scream from Harry as he bolted up in bed, still trapped in a nightmare.   _“NO!”_ he cried.   _“Not the cupboard- I’ll make the freakiness stop; I swear!”_

“Shhh, Bambi, you’re alright,” Lily soothed, rubbing his back as he gradually came awake.  Although they tried to hide it, everyone was looking at him with horrified expressions; there were only three people they knew who thought of magic as ‘freakiness,’ but nobody that hadn’t already found out about the abuse would have thought even _they_ would go so far as to put Harry in a _goddamn cupboard!_

“Oh,” Harry muttered, face heating up, “you’re all here…”

“Boys,” Molly said tightly, looking at the twins with her eyes ablaze, “do you have any more of those ton-tongue toffees?  You’re father’s been wanting to learn how to use the muggle post for quite some time now…”

“No!” Harry clamoured.  “Don’t hurt them- you’ll get in trouble!”

“I’m pretty sure I could get away with just about anything right now, after having been falsely imprisoned for twelve years,” Sirius began, his tone blasé as he twirled his newly-reclaimed wand between his fingers.  “The minister was practically grovelling at my feet earlier…”

“Please,” Harry whimpered, voice desperate.  “He… he’s got a gun, in the closet… I don’t want him to hurt you…” James and Lily tensed- they’d seen that oaf threaten their son with the rifle before.

“Shh, it’s alright pup,” Sirius murmured softly.  “We’ll stay right here if that’s what you want us to do.”  Harry visibly relaxed, and Ron squeezed his hand reassuringly.

“Harry…” George began, tone unusually solemn, “I think we owe you an apology.”

“For what?” the Indian teen asked, genuinely confused.

“Two years ago, when we came to rescue you in the ford,” Fred sighed, running a hand through his hair.  “We saw the bars on your window, the cot in the cupboard… we should have said something to you. We almost did, but we didn’t want to embarrass you, and well, we’d seen you in the changing rooms for quidditch and you didn’t look like you were being beaten so we left it alone.  It never occurred to us that you could be wearing glamours…”

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” Harry told them, nervously forcing himself to meet their eyes.  “I didn’t _want_ anyone to know, and if you’d confronted me about it I would have denied everything.  You guys did a lot for me, and I appreciate it. _Please_ don’t feel guilty,” he begged them, and although they would probably never stop feeling guilty (or at least not for a long time), they saw the desperation in his big green baby-deer eyes and told him that they wouldn’t, feeding him a little white lie to make him feel better.

It was what he’d been doing for them for years, after all...


	4. Chapter 4

“Padfoot, you _cannot_ bring that to our house,” Lily groaned, hands on her hips.

Sirius, riding his modern art sculpture of a giant dog set on a wheeled platform while Moony pushed him through the front door of Potter manor, looked in horror at his brother’s wife.

“Why not?!” he cried, hand over his heart.

“Because it’s _ugly_ and it doesn’t fit in with the decor,” she scolded.  Sirius sighed dramatically, flopping back so that he was lying horizontally on the statue.

“You are _ruining_ moving day for us!” he declared, wounded.

“And you and your boyfriend are moving into _my_ house, so you will not deface it with your horrid art- or at the very least, it stays in your bedroom.”

“Nuh-uh,” Sirius shook his head firmly.  “This is living room art or nowhere at all!”

“Alright then,” Lily shrugged, banishing the statue from under him.  Sirius fell on his arse with a yelp, just as James entered, carrying Harry.

“I can _walk,_ Dad,” the teen protested.  “That’s why Madame Pomfrey gave me the crutches.”

“No, she gave you the crutches for short trips, like to the bathroom and stuff.  Otherwise, Mr., you’re on bedrest,” he told his son sternly. Harry rolled his eyes at his father, but it was hard for him to hold back a smile when he was being _held by his father._

“Lils, do the elves have Harry’s room all set up?” he called to his wife, who nodded.

“Same one you used to sleep in,” she told him, and he nodded and called Sirius to ‘get off your lazy arse and open the door, Pads!’

Harry gasped when he saw his room.  In the middle was a massive four-poster bed done up in Gryffindor colours, and there was lovely cherry-wood furniture- a wardrobe and an armoire and a desk and a night table- arranged tastefully, so that the room felt even bigger than it was.  The ensuite bathroom was huge as well, with a deep jacuzzi tub and granite countertops and a huge shower with glass doors. The closet was bigger than Dudley’s second bedroom, or even his _first_ bedroom, and it was full of new clothing that looked like it had been custom-made to fit Harry.  There had been hooks set up above the dresser with his firebolt resting in them, and there was even a large television mounted on one wall.

 _“Wow,”_ Harry stammered, his jaw dropping.  “This is _mine?”_

“The whole thing,” James declared, chuckling as Lily, Pads, and Moony came in behind them.

“I thought you couldn’t even get muggle stuff to work in magical areas,” Harry exclaimed, his eyes still wide as saucers.

“That didn’t stop your mum,” his father laughed.  “She knew you’d be stuck in bed all summer, so she worked and worked until she figured it out.”

“Aww mum… you didn’t have to…” Harry mumbled, blushing brilliantly.

“But I _wanted_ to,” she told him, kissing his forehead.  “Now come on- let’s get you settled in and then I’ll make us some lunch so the elves can take a break.”

“And in the meantime, Moony and I will entertain our dear godson with tales of our daring teenaged escapades!” Sirius declared, taking the armchair by Harry’s bed and pulling Remus down into his lap.

“‘Oh Merlin,” Lily groaned, rolling her eyes, “here we go…”

____________

Harry was pondering the nature of how he could be both happier than he’d ever been in his life and terribly, _dreadfully_ bored.  He had his parents back and it was amazing and wonderful and everything he could have ever wanted, and nobody was beating him and he got to eat three times a day and he was surrounded by so, _so_ much love, but he was also stuck in bed with an itchy cast over his whole leg and his mum shoving disgusting pain potions at him every few hours even when he insisted he didn’t need them.

“You _do_ need them baby; your leg is broken,” Lily chided gently.  “Just because you’re good at tolerating pain doesn’t mean you should _have to,_ and since it’s easily within our power to keep you from hurting, that’s what we’re going to do.”

“Okay mum.” Harry eventually gave in with a small smile.  

 _“That’s_ my boy,” she praised, pressing a gentle kiss to the top of his head.  “Are you okay if I leave for a moment to go get you a snack?”

“I’m really not that hungry…” Harry began, but his mother was looking at him with big pleading eyes that were the exact mirror image of his, so he just sighed and said he’d try his best.

“Such a sweetheart,” she cooed, rubbing a thumb along his cheek.  “I’ll be right back.”

Harry drummed his fingers restlessly against his cast; his father was helping Remus clean out Grimmauld Place today so that they could use it as Order headquarters, and Sirius was outside, degnoming the garden for his mum and taking advantage of being able to be free in the fresh air and not on the run, knowing his family was right nearby.  Hermione and Cedric were both on holiday with their families, and the Weasleys had come over for dinner yesterday, but they weren’t here today, so that didn’t help him with his boredom _right now._

He wanted desperately to go out and fly his broom on the picturesque manor grounds, or even just to be able to get out of bed for something besides to use the bathroom and shower.  He sighed, throwing himself back against the pillow. The window was open to the fresh air, but it wasn’t enough. He wanted to go _outside,_ to feel the warm sunshine against his dark skin…

Except right now it wasn’t feeling so warm at all… in fact, there was a shiver going down his spine, like an ice cube had been dropped down the back of his shirt.  And then there were memories…

He was hungry and cold and hurting in the cupboard, having the skin stripped out of his back.  He was watching his boyfriend die in the graveyard, watching Voldemort come back. _Worthless, freak, useless!  Should have died with your parents!_ Petunia’s shrill voice filled his head as she swung a frying pan at him for the first time, and at two years old he wasn’t quite fast enough to keep it from clipping him on the ear.  There was a dementor in his room.

It was glisading towards him, closer and closer as he scrambled back against the headboard, his fingers frozen around around the duvet.  He was panting heavily, his breath misting in the air.

 _Need my wand, need my wand,_ he thought frantically, but it was just out of reach.  He couldn’t… couldn’t cast the patronus charm without his wand; it was hard enough with it.  But he’d done wandless magic before, with the glamours and scouring charms to get the blood out of his sheets at the Dursleys.

 _Accio wand, accio wand,_ he thought frantically, and to his relief, the wood met his fingers just as the robed creature reached the end of his bed.  He summoned the happiest memory he could, of realising his parents were back and that they were never going to leave him again, and he focused his energy through the channel of holly and phoenix feather.

 _“EXPECTO PATRONUM!”_ he boomed, injecting all the confidence into his voice that he could as a brilliant silver stag sprang out of the tip of his wand, chasing the dementor away, out the window through which it came.  He could only be glad that Sirius was far away, at the other end of the massive house where the garden was, so that the creature wouldn’t be able to sense him.

Lily came in with a plate of freshly-baked cookies and her son’s afternoon nutrient potion when she felt the chill air and saw the dementor rushing out of the room, and everything in her hands clattered to the ground as she stepped over the the mess and rushed to her son, feeling his forehead and looking over every inch of him.  He looked far too pale, and he was trembling.

“Oh _Merlin-_ are you alright?!” she asked frantically, her eyes still tracking every slight movement, looking for any sign that would indicate he needed professional attention, but he breathed out shakily and shook his head.

“I’m fine mum,” he muttered, gripping her hand as his heartbeat gradually slowed.  “I just… I don’t know where it came from…”

“I’ll call your father and Remus and bring them home and we’ll figure out what to do,” she said, going over to close the window when an owl suddenly came rushing through, dropping a letter.

“Oh no… this is my second warning because of the Dobby thing,” Harry groaned, paling as Lily read the letter.

 _“Like hell_ they’re going to expel you,” she swore angrily, sending her own Patronus to fetch her husband, Sirius, and Moony.  “Not on my watch!”

And then Pig was coming through with a letter from Ron telling him not to go anywhere (not that he could move very fast anyway) and a letter from Dumbledore wondering what was going on, which had Lily ripping it up- he shouldn’t be _daring_ to send them any mail, that old _bastard!_  And then there was another letter from the ministry, telling him that instead of being expelled, he had a hearing set for the next morning.

“You won’t be going to that; you’re on bedrest,” his mother said with finality.  
“But I could get expelled!” Harry cried anxiously, and his mother ran a hand gently along the side of his face.

“We’ll take care of it darling; don’t you worry,” she promised, brushing his hair behind his ears.  “Everything will be just fine. Now, I need to go put in a floo call to Snape, fuck it all… we have to figure out a way to update the wards to keep out dementors, which shouldn’t _have_ to be a problem, but well, here we are…”  She waited until Sirius had come running in before calling a house elf.

“Flopsy,” she ordered, her voice brisk.  “I need you to stay here and help Sirius guard Harry.  Mopsy,” she told the second one that popped in, “you close all the windows with the others, just in case.  I’m going to go floo the old bat and wait for Remus and my husband.” There were hard lines set in her angry expression, but she gave Harry one last gentle look and peck on the cheek.

“I’ll be right back, my darling, and I’ll send an elf with a new nutrient potion and something to eat in the meantime.  Don’t you worry; you’re not alone anymore, and I promise nothing bad is going to happen to you.” _Not ever again,_ she added in her head.   _It’ll take every force in the known universe dragging me kicking and screaming back down before_ **_anyone_ ** _lays a finger on my baby._

As he received her Patronus in Grimmauld Place, James was thinking the same thing.


	5. Chapter 5

Harry readjusted himself nervously, wincing when the movement aggravated his broken leg.  Padfoot gently pushed him back down onto the bed and fixed the pillows under his cast.

“Everything’s gonna be just fine, Pup; your parents aren’t going to let them expel you,” his godfather soothed, pushing his hair back.

“What if they _do,_ though?” Harry asked.  “What will I do then?”

“Then we’ll buy you a new wand and homeschool you, and we’ll go to America so you can take your OWLs and NEWTs,” Sirius responded.  “But we won’t _have_ to do that, because you have all the might of the Potter and Black houses behind you, and _nobody_ gets to mess with our little Prongslet.”

Harry smiled slightly.  “Thanks Siri,” he mumbled, feeling slightly better.

_________

Meanwhile, at the Ministry, Lily and James were bursting through the doors to the hearing with all the force of a hurricane.  There was a buxomous, pink-clad woman with a toad-like face staring down smugly, and the parents hadn’t the slightest of doubts that she was ready to convict their son.  Fudge stared down at them as well, crumpling his bowler hat in his hands, a scowl on his face.

“Where is the defendant?” he asked crossly.  “Surely you cannot think to have a trial without him?”  
_“Harry_ is resting in bed because he is currently suffering severe injuries as a result of his recent near-death experience, but we’re here to settle this nonsense on his behalf,” James ground out.

“That is not how things work around here,” the pink-clad toad hem-hemed in a disgustingly high, faux-girlish voice.

“Well, it’s going to be,” Lily spat.  “Tell me, _minister,”_ she began, making sure to put a mocking emphasis on the word, “why _on earth_ would our son use one _very specific_ spell unless there were absolute cause for him to use it, knowing **_full well_ ** that casting it could land him in a tight spot with the ministry, hmmm?!”

“I…” Fudge interjected, but Lily wasn’t done.

“And another thing,” she continued, just beginning to work up steam, her face turning red as her anger increased, “I’ve had just about enough of your fucking madness with the way you and your _‘government’_ (yes, she made the air quotes) have been treating my son!  We _saw_ everything, with the way you let your fucking press spread a bunch of _nonsense_ about a minor without any sort of regulations or repercussions, and let me tell you, you are going to _drop_ these charges, you are going to submit a public apology to him in The Prophet, and you are going to _leave him alone from now on, or so help me God…”_

“That is a fair point,” Fudge stuttered, pulling at his collar nervously.  “Now, perhaps we ought to hear from the prosecution-”

“No!   _No_ hearing from the prosecution,” James interrupted.  “Don’t think that I, as the Lord of an Most Ancient and Noble house, don’t know how illegal this is, to have a public hearing regarding discipline over Improper Use of Magic, and besides, it’s unnecessary to even _have_ a hearing over a spell that is _exclusively_ used in self-defence, which is exempt from the rules regarding not using magic over the summer- you will _drop_ the charges and do as my wife says, or you will have the entire combined might of the Houses Potter and Black raining down upon your head!”

“V-very well,” the minister agreed, trying not to sound as frightened as he was (either of those houses alone could cause a significant amount of damage to his reputation and his agenda, _especially_ with the recent injustices he’d done them both, but together…).  “We shall drop the charges…” and, he added, when the Lord and Lady Potter kept glaring at him, _“and_ we shall consent to your other terms as well.”

“Damn right you will!” Lily swore, giving Fudge and his toad-lady one last venomous look before looping her arm through her husband’s.  “Now, we’re going home to our baby.”

_________

“How-” Harry began anxiously, as soon as they’d entered his room, but Lily just put a hand on his cheek gently.

“All is well,” she promised him.  “They’re dropping the charges _and_ giving you a clean record with the Improper Use of Magic Office.”

“Oh,” Harry breathed, the tension leaving his body in one fell swoop.  “Well that’s, that’s fantastic!” He smiled tentatively, slightly unnerved by his own good luck.

“We’re here now Bambi,” Lily soothed.  “You don’t have to worry about these things any more.”

“Oh, and fair warning,” James added, “Snivellus is coming over- we’re trying to create some sort of warding system that will keep dementors away, since the ministry clearly can’t be trusted, and unfortunately we need his abilities with potions and spells.”  He looked quite put out about this, but he had to admit that they _did_ need his help and _could_ use an extra person to power the wards anyway…

“Don’t worry though,” Lily said, rubbing a thumb gently along his cheek.  “We’ll make him behave, and we’ll keep him away from you except where absolutely necessary for assembling the wards.”

“It’s fine,” Harry reassured her.  “I mean, I deal with Snape all the time in school, and you won’t let him be an arse here, so I really don’t mind.”

“My little Bambi, so good-natured,” Lily sighed, pushing his hair back.  “I love you so much.”

“Love you too mum,” Harry responded quietly, smiling down at his hands.  “I’ll just be in here if you need me… resting…” he sighed, and she chuckled as she ruffled his hair again and kissed his forehead.

“I know it’s boring, but you need it badly,” she reminded him.  “The door will be open; call if you need anything.”

____________

“Lily, you called…” Severus was wringing his hands anxiously, casting one dark eye around him to scrutinize the manor while the other stayed focused on his old best friend.

“Yes, Severus, I did,” she responded primly.  “We need to consult you on a matter.”

 _“We?”_ the man asked, paling slightly (which didn’t even seem possible with his already-sallow tone).

“Yes, Snivellus!” Sirius declared dramatically, sliding into the living room on socked feet and just barely avoiding a crash as he grabbed the Slytherin’s shoulder to keep from falling on his arse and nearly shoved him down in the process.  “As much as you suck, you pompous old git, we unfortunately require your expertise in the field of brewery.”

Remus came up behind his boyfriend at a more sedate pace, rolling his eyes.  “As I’m sure you’ve heard at least _something_ about, the ministry sent Harry a letter for a disciplinary hearing for Improper Use of Magic.  We’ve had the verdict overturned, but the point still remains that Harry had to cast the patronus charm in his own home.  Do you know why that would be?”

“Dementors,” the man gasped, his surprise showing despite himself.  “But how…”

“Obviously they’re not staying where they’re put,” James said gravely, a hand placed softly on Lily’s shoulder.  “We’ve never had cause to worry about this sort of thing before, but now we need help devising some sort of anti-dementor wards.  We were thinking along the lines of something of a long-acting Patronus, where we all cast a few times in different parts of the house and you create a potion to sustain them so they don’t drain on our energies and can stay up unsupported.”

“So essentially a modified and strengthened form of some sort of permanency brew with calculations made to account for the fact that we’re working with Patroni,” he muttered to himself, the thought of being able to brew uninterrupted by the idiocy of children while also helping his old friend taking his mind off of the rather uncomfortable situation.  “I’d need some fairly rare ingredients, however…”

“I’m certain that whatever you need is in our lab,” James declared, keeping his tone neutral for the sake of the project- his dislike for the man could take over again _after_ his family was safe.  “My father was quite the potions master himself, and I’ve kept his stock viable and up to date even when I didn’t have time to brew myself.  If you do need anything additional, I’ll send to Diagon Alley for it.”

“Very well,” Severus nodded, trying to force down his own hatred, not least because it would displease Lily.  “If you could show me the way, I will get started immediately.”

Four hours later and Snape had a finished brew to test.  “Alright- if one of you could cast a patronus for me,” he told the group, and James stepped forward.  Snape’s eyes widened when a stag came galloping out of the man’s wand; he hadn’t realised that Potter had _also_ had a woodland Patronus, except that instead of a _mirror_ of Lily’s it was _complimentary._ What did this mean- was it always like this, or had it changed once they’d gotten together?  Was it somehow a symbol of his own love for Lily, throwing in the fact that his was _requited_ as well, just to taunt Severus?  If Potter saw all these emotions in his face, he said nothing as he held the glowing silver stag steady so that Snape could put the potion on it.

“You should be able to remove the spell now and have it stay up,” he instructed tightly, and James did so.

“And it does indeed stay,” he sighed in relief.  “I… I suppose I owe you a thank you; this will work wonders for both Harry’s safety and our own peace of mind.”

 _“I_ should think it was the least he could do,” his wife sniffed, and a small smile quirked at the corners of James’ mouth.

“I was only trying to be polite, luv, like you used to ask me to,” he teased, and she tossed her long red hair over her shoulder.

“You always do decide to take my advice at the wrong time,” she sighed, but she was smiling as she stood on tiptoes to kiss him.  “I still think _you’re_ an arse, though,” she declared, turning to glare at Severus.  “I’m going to go check on Harry.”

They set a total of sixteen Patroni around the grounds of the manor, enough to keep out an _army_ of dementors.  One of them was standing guard under the window in Harry’s room where the first one had entered, but Lily still wanted one standing guard on the door that led to his room from the _inside_ as well, so she led her old friend imperiously to her son’s door.  Harry himself was just coming out of the shower, fully dressed in James’ old Gryffindor Quidditch Captain jumper and one of the many pairs of soft new joggers his parents had gotten him, as they fit over his cast without too much fuss.  Lily thought he looked adorable, not quite five feet tall and with his tongue sticking out of the corner of his mouth as he focused on managing the unwieldy crutches with the full leg cast. As Snape placed the potion on both Lily and James Patroni (yes, they’d decided to put two outside his door for extra protection), his eyes caught sight of the coming year’s potions textbook placed upside-down on his unmade bed, and he couldn’t help quirking an eyebrow.  Harry noticed and chuckled.

“Boredom calls for desperate measures,” he shrugged (or tried to, failing miserably with the crutches, and his father rushed to catch him as he wobbled).  Lily, however, didn’t find it quite so amusing.

“He’s actually quite good at potions, and he enjoys it _when he’s not being yelled at,”_ she berated Snape, who looked down at his shoes like a chastised first-year.  Harry was in the process of wiggling up onto his bed, sighing and rolling his eyes fondly at his father’s persistent efforts to help him.

“I… I suppose I do owe you an apology, Potter… or rather, quite a few of them…” he mumbled, and Harry’s eyes widened as he looked at the man in complete disbelief.

“I uh… I… did my parents _ask_ you to do this?” he gaped eventually, and Lily shook her head no.

“I thought he _needed_ to, but I wasn’t going to put you through the indignity of receiving a forced apology that clearly wasn’t sincere,” she told her son, scrutinizing her ex-friend intently.  “No, whatever his motives, this was of his own initiative…”

“Oh uh, well… erm… it’s okay?” he said eventually, not knowing what else to say, sure he would never have found himself in this position, with _Severus Snape_ apologising to him.

“It’s really not, Bambi; you’re far too forgiving,” his mother sighed, but it was with fondness, unlike the look she gave Severus, which was still full of venom.

“So uh… brew anything exciting lately?”  Bless her sweet boy, Lily thought, trying to make small talk with a man who had treated him so terribly for years just to ease the tension.

“Oh, well there was this one thing, I suppose… a modified deflating draught that-” just as he was getting worked up to have a passionate discussion about potions with _Potter’s son,_ of all people, he clenched his teeth and let out a hiss of pain as the mark on his arm burned, and Harry looked at him with wide eyes.

“You’re being called?” he asked, and Severus forced himself to bite back a sarcastic response, merely nodding.

“But my scar doesn’t hurt…” Harry seemed very perplexed by this, but Severus didn’t have time to ponder the implications.

“You report to _us_ first, before Dumbledore,” Lily ordered him sternly, and he couldn’t have said no even if he wanted to, not to _Lily._

“Of course,” he grunted before running towards the door (the manor had anti-apparation wards all around except for the family members who were keyed into them, and Lily had to admit that she watched him scamper off clutching his arm with a sadistic sense of satisfaction).

________________

It was late that night and Harry was the only one awake.  Technically he knew he shouldn’t be out of bed, but anxiety drove him to his feet, anxiously pacing the hallways in the living room, a silencing charm on the ends of his crutches (that he’d put on wandlessly, which he knew the ministry couldn’t track from years of glamouring injuries during the summers) so the noise of them hitting the hardwood floors wouldn’t wake his parents.  Snape hadn’t returned yet, and while he was certainly _glad_ that his scar was pain-free and that there was no sign of Voldemort in his head, a sensation he’d always hated, he didn’t like not knowing what was going on.  Besides, this was the first meeting called since Voldemort’s return, and even if he never got on well with Snape, he’d hate to see the man die. _Besides,_ Harry’s overly-generous disposition thought, _he was actually being pretty nice tonight._

His leg had begun to ache and he knew he should _sit_ at the very least, but a little pain was hardly a bother after all these years, and he couldn’t bring himself to terms with the idea of waiting idly with no movement as an outlet for the nervous energy he was experiencing.  At long last, the front door (temporarily charmed to let Severus Snape in as well as the family members) swung open and a very haggard-looking potions master stepped through, eyes widening in surprise when he saw Harry.

“Shouldn’t you be in _bed?”_ he asked his student, who ignored the question as he looked him over.

“Oi, you look like you got a good dose of the cruciatus,” he said, wincing sympathetically, causing Snape to only then remember that Potter had _also_ experienced it, and at far too young an age at that.  “Here, come sit down,” he told the professor, guiding him towards the couch.  “I’ll go down to the lab and get you something to take the edge off.”

“Potter, your injuries are worse than mine; you shouldn’t be up,” Snape ordered, clenching his teeth as he gripped his hand to his side.

Harry hobbled towards the kitchen, wandlessly summoning the ingredients for hot cocoa with a magical affinity that made the man’s eyes boggle.  “There’s a lot of things I shouldn’t be doing,” Harry replied flippantly. “And yet, if I didn’t do them, Voldemort would have gotten the Philosopher's stone, Ginny would be dead, and Sirius would be a vegetable, so I do them anyway.”

The Slytherin did not expect the stab of guilt that came at the mention of Potter’s godfather and his own role in the near-kiss he’d gotten from the Dementors.  “It’s not your job to save the world, Potter,” he told the teen as he came back with the vial of potion, which he chugged eagerly, grimacing at the taste before relaxing as some of the tremors stopped.

“If that were true I wouldn’t do it,” Harry argued, mixing two mugs of cocoa.  “It’s not like I _want_ to live with all this stress in the first place I’ve ever felt at home.  But nobody else steps up, and it’s not like I’m willing to let people suffer for that, so Ron and Hermione and I do what we have to.”  He said this the way most people might say that they had to take out the trash or run to the store for milk; in an emotionless tone of voice, very matter-of-fact.

“Potter, this… you can’t keep doing this…” Severus sighed, laboriously taking a sip of the warm beverage.

“I wish I didn’t have to, but I’m not going to let people _die_ because Voldemort has a bone to pick with _me,”_ Harry swore ardently, the first waves of emotion of the entire night leaking into his voice.  “Professor, I watched my boyfriend _die_ for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, and it’s only luck and a miracle that brought him and my parents and Frank back.”

Despite the situation and the fact that the child had some perceptions that _clearly_ needed to be corrected, Snape could only look blankly at Harry.

“Frank?” he asked, lost.

“That old muggle that also came back; I’m pretty sure he’s still wandering around at Hogwarts; Hagrid likes him, and Frank likes the forest because there’s a lot of stuff he can whack with his cane.”

“Alright then,” Severus sighed.  “Shouldn’t we wake your parents so I can update them on the situation?”  It had been a long night, and even if Lily hated him, it was easier to deal with than the fact that his awkward apology had apparently erased all of ‘far-too-kind-for-his-own-good’ Potter’s animosity towards him and that the teenager was apparently fully willing to strike up a civil conversation in the dead of night like they were old friends.

“Anything urgent?” Harry asked.

“He’s mostly laying low for now, or if he _is_ planning anything, I know nothing of it.”

“Then let’s hold off a bit,” Harry replied.  “I don’t want to go back to bed yet; I swear if I have to sit around for another minute I’ll lose my mind.”

“Potter, I’m not exactly in a position to allow you to blatantly flout a strict order of bedrest…”

“And I’m not in a position to do a lot of things, but I do them anyway,” Harry shrugged, picking up his own mug.  “So, tell me seriously- what are we looking at in the coming war?”

 _“We_ are not looking at anything,” Severus scolded him.   _“You_ are a child who shouldn’t have to concern himself with these things, and frankly I’m going to have to let your parents know that they ought to have a talk with you about this self-sacrificing attitude of yours.”

“It’s not a ‘self-sacrificing’ attitude,” Harry contested.  “I don’t _want_ something bad to happen to me; it’s just that I’d rather it be me than anybody else.”

“And _that,_ Potter, is the _definition_ of ‘self-sacrificing,’” Snape told him, raising an eyebrow.

“That’s some big talk, coming from someone who lets himself be a hexing block for Voldemort to get information for us,” Harry refuted.

 _“I_ am atoning for my mistakes, Potter,” Severus grit out, pinching the bridge of his nose as he tried not to lose his temper.   _“You. are. a._ **_child._ ** _”_

“I’ve _never_ been a child,” Harry countered.  “I never got to have a childhood, and I don’t see why I should start now, not when there’s a war going on.”

Snape let out several curse words under his breath.  “For the love of… that’s the most bloody Gryffindor thing… I don’t even know… _Merlin,_ Potter,” he ended his string of incoherent ranting.

Harry just raised an eyebrow at him, causing Severus to groan and tug on his hair in frustration.  “You know what, Potter? Just go back to bed, before I call your parents and tell them you were out of it.”

“We’re not done here,” Harry insisted stubbornly.  “We still need to talk strategy-”

“Let me get one thing very clear, Potter,” the professor interrupted him quietly, but leaving Harry no option to continue.  “You seem to be labouring under the assumption that because I was unnecessarily and _wrongly_ cruel to you for years, I will have no problem letting you risk your neck in this war, or that I will allow you to make dangerous sacrifices that your loved ones would not.  This is a mistaken assumption- even if I never made a promise to your mother to protect you before she died, I am still a faculty member tasked with keeping you pubescent little idiots from killing yourselves via your own stupidity no matter _how_ much I wish that weren’t the case, so I am going to say this _one more time_ before I give up and subject you to the fussing of your anxious mother, Potter- go. to. bed!”

Harry went to bed.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys- updates have been slow, I know, and we are SO behind on the inbox, but life has been so crazy. Between school and work, I’m pulling fifty+ hour weeks, and I promise you we are working on our other stuff, but it’s just rare that we get the time for a whole chapter at once. So please just be patient with me and keep an eye out for updates when they do come, and join me in counting excitedly down towards thanksgiving and winter holidays when we can actually have time to grind some stuff out haha (to top it off, we have like a bunch of new WIP ideas that I’m itching to start but that we don’t have time for until I have a break from school, and goooosh life is so busy these days. Honestly, I wish I could just write fanfic and occasionally some original stuff for the rest of my life instead of like getting a degree and going to law school and stuff, but that whole ‘you can do whatever you want with your life, don’t worry about the money’ shit is for rich people, and I am not that. *sighs*). Anyway, thanks for being awesome readers; we love you!  
> Love,  
> Des

Severus waited until the younger Potter had hobbled back to his room and shut the door before he pulled his own aching body off the couch to go wake Lily and the other Potter (he refused to call them by their names; he couldn’t be going and forming any sort of _connection_ to them.  This was just a job he had to do- for Lily).  

Meanwhile, Harry was glad he and Ced had agreed to invest their TriWizard money in the Weasley twins’ pranking business, as they had sent him a get-well basket full of some of their newest inventions that they’d been able to develop with some of the funds.  One of which happened to be a product called “Extendable Ears,” which enabled him to listen to the conversation going on outside his door surreptitiously, and without leaving his bed. Turning his body so that he was facing the door (which was somewhat difficult with his cast), he put one end in his ear and tossed the other towards the door, watching as it stretched outward and under the crack.  The first thing he heard was the faint stirring of his parents’ patroni standing guard, but shortly after that, voices began to come through.

“It seems he’s planning on lying low for now,” Severus was telling the assembled group, and Harry could hear the growling noises of Sirius’ light-up monster slippers as he paced the parlour.  The rest of the group seemed to be sitting down, as there was the rustle of fabric against the leather of the couch, and Harry made a mental note to tell the twins how _amazing_ their new product was.  He could hear absolutely _everything_ from his bed all the way to the kitchen, where one of the elves was fixing tea for the adults.

“So he has no plans of hurting Harry at the moment, then?” Lily asked tightly, her son her main priority.

“None that he’s mentioned, at least,” his potions professor replied, and Harry could tell by the discontented shuffling as his mother readjusted herself that she was not pleased with the uncertainty of the answer.

“What about the dementors?” Remus asked.  “Surely he had some hand in those…”

“He honestly seemed somewhat perturbed by it; he _claimed_ that he didn’t send them, although he could be playing at some sort of deception.  Either way, his contacts in the ministry like Lucius have been ordered to look into it,” Snape recited.

“You know, for a spy, you’re sure not let in on a lot,” Lily snapped, and James put a comforting hand on her arm.

“Most of the confidential information I receive is when he is in need of a potion of some sort,” the man replied, his voice apologetic in a way it wasn’t for anyone else.  “He was none too pleased with me tonight besides, as I was unable to come to his side during the tournament.”

“It would have seemed suspicious if you _did,”_ Remus butt in, and Harry swore that he could almost hear the professor rolling his eyes.

“The dark lord is not a man of reason, wolf,” he replied through grit teeth, and there was sound of Lily jumping to her feet to join Sirius.

“Don’t you talk to him like that,” she ordered, and Padfoot’s slippers growled again as he took a step forward, hand raised, before he took a deep breath and backed down again, his breathing ragged as he melted into Moony’s lap.  He was really trying his best not to start shit with the man like when they were in school, no matter how much he might have deserved a good kick in the teeth the muggle way.

“Apologies…. Lupin,” the Slytherin forced out, Lily still standing there staring at him with her hands on her hips and looking completely put-together despite wearing only an old Gryffindor t-shirt and a pair of joggers under her grey dressing gown.

“All’s forgiven, Severus,” Remus sad magnanimously, and there was a tense silence for a moment before Lily spoke again.

“If that’s all you have to say, then get out of my house,” she demanded, and James put a gentle hand on her shoulder again.

“Come on, Flower- why don’t we just let him crash on the couch for a bit?  He’s still shaking from the cruciatus and he _is_ helping us.  Besides, he’d only have to come back again tomorrow to check the new wards.”

“He’ll have to go to Hogwarts and come back anyway, because he needs to report to Dumbledore, and Harry’s almost out of medicine,” the witch rebutted, unmoving.

“And he can do that in the morning,” Remus replied calmly.  “For now, why don’t we let him catch a few hours of sleep?”

“It’s fine,” Snape muttered, unusually abashed.  “I can leave.”

“Wait.”  To Harry’s surprise, this objection came from Sirius.  

“Look,” his godfather said.  “Snivellus sucks, yeah, but what could it hurt, having one more wizarding adult in the house for the night?  If anything, it’s extra protection. Let’s just let him stay and catch a few hours of sleep; he’s no good to us if he runs himself down from exhaustion.”  Harry knew that it was irrational of him, but he couldn’t help but cringe at the way they were talking about Snape as if he wasn’t in the room or like he was some sort of commodity.  Even though he knew that the circumstances were vastly different and that Snape deserved at least some of the treatment he was getting, he couldn’t prevent himself from being reminded of the way the Dursleys used to talk about _him,_ although he felt immediately guilty for associating them even slightly with his loved ones.

“Fine,” Lily snapped tightly.  “He can stay. But he isn’t to ask the elves for anything and he needs to be out before breakfast.”  Harry could hear her feet moving as she turned to Snape. “You don’t deserve any more of our hospitality.”

Snape’s next words were spoken so quietly that even with the help of the expendable ear (which worked far better than his own), he nearly missed them.  “I know,” he agreed, and Harry was willing to bet that his eyes were cast towards the ground as he refused to meet his mother’s eyes. Harry had done the same thing often enough when _he_ was being snapped at, whether by the Dursleys or Snape.

 _This is different,_ he reminded himself.   _Snape was really mean to all of us._ But he had a gentle heart, and he couldn’t help feeling bad for the man as the others all drifted to bed, leaving the professor alone on the couch, his breath hitching slightly as Lily gave him one last dirty look.

______________

Harry couldn’t sleep that night; he’d been resting far too much to be tired, and he felt bad for Snape despite how hard he tried not to.  Eventually, hours before dawn, he grabbed his crutches and hobbled out to the living room, hoping to offer the professor another potion to help with the aftereffects of the torture curse and stretch his legs a bit before his parents woke up and he had to be a good little patient.

“Potter,” Snape remarked groggily as he woke to Harry’s thin little face looking down at him, his hand holding out a vial of the same potion he’d been given last night, along with a plate of eggs resting on the coffee table.  “Do you _ever_ do what you’re told?”

“Nope,” Harry smiled cheekily.  “Here- food will help.”

Severus looked at him with raised eyebrows.  “Where did you get this? Not even the elves are up at this hour.”

“I made it,” the teen replied with half a shrug, balancing carefully on the crutches.

The professor stared at him in disbelief.  “That must have been quite difficult, Potter.  Why go through the trouble?”

“It really wasn’t any trouble, professor,” Harry responded.  “I mean, eggs are pretty simple, and this isn’t the first time I’ve cooked on a broken leg.  The crutches actually make it a whole lot easier.”

Snape could tell by the open, innocent expression on Harry’s face that the thought was meant to be comforting, but it was quite the opposite: all these years, and he’d been bullying not only an _innocent_ child but an _abused_ one.  He was feeling more and more like an arse, and he knew he deserved every bit of it.  The horror must have shown on his face (despite his usual abilities of hiding his emotions), because Harry’s big green eyes went wide in his thin little face, far too young-looking for his age.

“Oh,” he mumbled, lifting one arm and readjusting so he could scratch the back of his neck like he always did when he was nervous.  “I probably shouldn’t have said that; I didn’t mean to make you feel bad…”

“Honestly Potter, there’s nothing to be sorry for,” the professor said, but in his anger at himself it came out somewhat snappish.

“Oh,” Harry muttered.  “Sorry…”

Snape hated that he rolled his eyes, but honestly, how could he _not_ at such a statement?  “Merlin’s pants, child- if I punched you in the face, would you apologize for _that_ too?!”

“Please don’t,” Harry replied in a small voice.  “I think my mum would literally kill you.”

Severus pinched the bridge of his nose.  “Dear Morgana… I’m not going to punch you in the face, Harry.”  He didn’t mean for the boy’s first name to slip out, but it did, and both their eyes went wide as they stared at each other.

“Did you just…”

“Please… don’t talk about it,” the man sighed, uncorking the potion and hesitantly reaching for a fork.  “I’m not… I don’t know entirely what’s happened in the past couple of days.”

“Tell me about it,” Harry murmured.  “I’m not sure what’s been happening _my whole life.”_

“Quite a lot of having adults fail you, I imagine,” Severus couldn't help but reply, a bitter smile pulling at the corners of his mouth.

“I guess,” Harry shrugged.  “But I’ve got parents who care about me _now,_ so there’s really no point in dwelling on it.”

“You can’t just shove your trauma in a little box and expect it to stay there Po- child,” Snape scolded.  Harry looked at him blankly before raising his eyebrow in a scarily familiar gesture.

 _“You_ did,” he pointed out.

 _Goodness,_ Severus groaned inwardly.   _Impertinent child…_ But he looked back at the small teenager, hoping to get his point across.

“And look where that got me,” he reminded him.

“What?” Harry shrugged.  “Having a stimulating early-morning conversation with your favourite student?  Doesn’t seem too bad.” His eyes were alight with barely-restrained laughter at the absurdity of the statement, and Snape knew that he was trying to steer the direction of the conversation away to less uncomfortable topics, but he was _also_ fully aware that however bad the child’s (and Snape really couldn’t bring himself to think of him as a teenager, not without the glamours- he really looked like nothing more than an injured child, dragged into a war he didn’t ask for but for which he was taking the responsibility onto his own fragile shoulders nonetheless) past might be, he was still a young boy enjoying the opportunity to quip at an authority figure without consequence.  

“You are an impossible little thing, you know that?” He growled, but there was no malice behind the tone, as evidenced by the fact that Har- that _Potter_ did not look at all frightened.  

“Hey!” Harry cried.  “I am _not_ little!”

“Tell that to all the goblins that match you in height,” Snape quipped back, disbelieving that he was actually having a somewhat-enjoyable exchange of words with James Potter’s spawn (who, it must be admitted, was leagues more tolerable than his father, now that he was actually taking the chance to view him from a different angle and not through his own preconceived notions).

“I will have you know that I am nearly a foot taller than all the goblins I’ve met,” Harry harrumphed, which really wasn’t saying much- now that Snape thought back to it, he had been the only first-year that had been the same height as Professor Flitwick when he got to Hogwarts.  With the height of both his father _and_ mother, it really should have been an indication, but once the child had learned to do the glamours, he seemed to be on par with the rest of his class.  Snape was still getting used to having to look a full six inches lower to make eye contact with the boy.

“Hey!” Harry interjected.  “You’re feeling bad for me- stop that!”

“I’m sorry Potter, but as powerful as you are, you really _do_ have the appearance of a fluffy little kitten.”

Harry glowered at him, which only made him more _adorable,_ and Merlin help Snape for thinking it.  But even his cold heart couldn’t be unaffected by Potter without his glamours, his hair messed up from tossing and turning in bed and his arms crossed over his tiny chest.  He really _did_ look like nothing more threatening than an angry baby crup would to someone who wasn’t afraid of dogs.  Even behind his new, thin wire-framed glasses, his eyes were so enormous they seemed to take up half his face.

His thoughts were interrupted as Lily’s voice could be heard ricocheting through the halls, yelling “JAMES- I CAN’T FIND HARRY!” She had clearly intended to check on her sleeping child, and now was in a full-scale panic that he wasn’t in his room.

“He’s in here!” Snape yelled, well-aware that he was about to be scolded for not sending the boy immediately back to bed (not that he would have listened anyway).  Harry’s eyes went wide as he quickly wandlessly banished the evidence of the breakfast he’d made the professor and tried to sit in his chair as innocently as possible, drowning in the old hoodie of his mum’s he was wearing as pajamas and looking wildly around for a stool to prop his previously-unelevated leg on.

“Er, hi mum,” he said sheepishly, waving at her charmingly.  Her whole body slumped in relief as she ran over to him.

“Oh Harry, thank god!” She cried, checking over every inch of him.  “What were you doing out of bed?”

“I got bored?” He tried, shrugging.  She gave him an unimpressed look but didn’t scold him any further.

“And _you!”_ She turned on her old friend.  “What were _you_ doing?!”

“Aw mum, don’t blame him.”  Harry surprised Snape by standing up for him.  “I just came out because I was _so_ bored and couldn’t sleep.  He wasn’t even awake until a few minutes ago.”

“You were so bored you decided to talk to _Snivellus?”_ She gasped incredulously, pulling him to her chest.  “Poor thing- is there anything we can get you that will make you more comfortable- some more books, a game of some sort?  Maybe one of those muggle video game consoles?”

“No mum, it’s fine, really,” Harry was quick to say, feeling bad that he’d made _her_ feel bad.  “I just… can you not call him Snivellus?”

“I… after everything he’s done to you?” She asked, tucking a strand of hair behind his ear as she fussed over him.  She genuinely feared that her son’s immense capacity to forgive was going to get him in trouble one day; there were far too many people willing to take advantage of the sort of boundless kindness her sweet baby had inside.

“I mean yeah, he’s been a git mum, but I think he’s really _trying_ to be better,” Harry said.  Lily had a sudden flashback to her fellow Gryffindor prefect saying the same thing to her about his friend James all those years ago.  Snape still sat awkwardly on the couch, feeling as though he didn’t belong as part of this conversation even though it was about him.

“Alright, if that’s what you want, I won’t be so openly hostile towards him,” she sighed, giving in; she couldn’t have said no to anything Harry wanted after all these years, unless it was something (like getting out of bed) that would threaten his health.  “Now come on darling; let’s get you back to bed, and your father and I will put aside all our work for the day to keep you from getting too bored.” She picked him up despite his protestations that he could walk and kissed his head as she carried him back to his room.  “Oh, and Sn- _Severus?”_ She called back.  “Can you grab his crutches for me before you head back to Hogwarts?”  

The man did as instructed, his head reeling.  Lily was being… if not nice, than _normal_ to him again, and he had her son (who he had been an utter berk to for years) to thank for it.  The sun had only just risen, but already this was turning into a _weird_ day...


End file.
